


I Have a Problem

by ronans



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, First Date, Shoe store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:39:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronans/pseuds/ronans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how hard Mandy tries, she can't seem to shake off the blonde girl who keeps coming into the shoe store where she works, claiming to always have a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have a Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Based off episode 3 of the Channel 4 series Banana.  
> Wow, I couldn't think up a summary so... it's really shit, I apologise.  
> This is my first Mandy/Karen fic so I hope it's okay and they're in character enough :)

‘These are pretty cute.’

Mandy jumps at the sudden voice right next to her ear and spins around, dropping the pair of shoes she’d been about to put on display in the store window. She frowns at the blonde girl who’d spoken and dusts off her hands on her pant legs. ‘Uh, yeah, I guess they are.’

The girl leans over and picks up one of the pink pumps Mandy had literally just put down.

‘How much?’

‘Those ones are twenty dollars,’ Mandy replies, rocking back on her combat boot clad heels. As the girl has her eyes trained on the shoes, Mandy takes the time to discreetly check her out. She looks about the same age as Mandy, and she can imagine her straightened hair would be soft underneath Mandy’s fingertips. She shakes herself out of it and directs her gaze back to the pile of shoes she’s supposed to be putting on display. She’s done fucking around so she should stop herself before she tries anything.

‘Do they come in a size…’ The girl looks over at Mandy teasingly. Mandy’s bewildered for a second before she realises what she’s getting at.

‘You’re a size five, right?’

‘You’re clearly following the right career path. That was amazing,’ she replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. Mandy chuckles and then drops into a crouch, placing a pair of insanely douchey flip flops in the display case.

After a while she looks back up to see the same girl staring down at her. ‘Can I help you with anything else?’ she asks, standing back up and adjusting her ponytail.

‘You gonna scan these for me?’

Mandy’s eyebrows practically hit her hairline. ‘I’m not on the register right now,’ she says slowly, like she 's talking to someone insanely dumb. She doesn’t think she’s _stupid_ , it’s just the only way she can force out a sentence in the face of a suddenly irritating customer. When she doesn’t budge and just continues to stare at Mandy expectantly, Mandy lets out a long-suffering sigh. ’Fuck, fine, I’ll scan it for you.’

She looks way too smug as she watches Mandy explain to her co-worker at the register that she needs to take over for a few minutes. Mandy doesn’t even know why she gave in.

*

It takes one day for the blonde girl to return to the shop and Mandy instantly recognises her. She elevates an eyebrow as the girl barges to the front of the, admittedly short, queue and throws down the shoe box Mandy had sent her away with yesterday.

‘I have a problem.’

‘Oh really? Take it up with your gynaecologist instead of skipping the line in my store,’ Mandy responds, already pushing the cardboard box aside and an apology on the edge of her tongue for the customer she’d been serving before.

‘You got my shoe size wrong.’

Mandy flicks her eyes over to the girl who’s got a cocky expression on her face. ‘Uh… Sorry. Maybe you should’a corrected me at the time and saved yourself some hassle.’ Mandy hates having to be civil with customers who are obviously trying to make her life in retail hell.

She smiles over at Mandy and brandishes a new pair of completely different style shoes and her receipt. ‘Changed my mind on the shoes, too. These look cuter.’

Mandy attempts to hide her grimace as she scans the purchase; they’re some weird, flowery sneakers that look like they belong in the children’s section.

‘Wait, these are the same size as-‘

‘Thanks!’

As the girl grabs her items and walks out of the store, Mandy can’t help thinking that she’s on a mission to piss her off and it won’t be long before she’s back again.

*

The fifth time the girl returns to the store because she has a problem with her shoes (‘they’re too pink’, ‘I don’t like the way this one has a logo on it’, etcetera, etcetera) gets Mandy suspicious. Not that she wasn’t suspicious already, but she’s actually going to voice her concerns this time.

Her hair’s wavy today, but Mandy’s not going to focus on that right now when there are more pressing issues at hand, like why she’s even here in the first place.

‘Okay, there’s no fucking way there’s something wrong with the shoes now. You stalking me or something?’ Mandy sighs as she waltzes up to the counter, plopping the brand new shoe box down, all the while gazing up at Mandy sunnily. Mandy’s _so_ ready to fucking yell at her.

‘Hey, I’m Karen, would you go on a date with me?’ Karen extends her hand across the counter, disregarding the new set of shoes she’d taken up with her, and Mandy’s left staring at it in confusion.

‘S’cuse me?’

Karen cocks her head and searches Mandy’s eyes for a moment before breaking out into an amused grin. ‘You didn’t pick up on my signals? Are you fucking serious-‘ Karen pauses to squint at Mandy’s chest. ‘...Mandy?’

She titters as she picks up the new pair of shoes and boxes them up and then proceeds to stuff them in a brown paper bag. ‘All this time and you didn’t even know my fucking name?’

Karen clears her throat and moves so she’s completely blocking the woman waiting behind her from watching the exchange. Mandy’s probably going to get in shit with her manager for repeatedly allowing this kind of thing to happen, but right now she can’t quite bring herself to care.

‘I mean, can you blame me for letting that minor detail slip my mind?’ Mandy raises an eyebrow in question and leans against the counter. ‘I was too busy looking at your eyes. And boobs.’ Mandy snorts and ducks her head while Karen just shrugs. ‘What? They’re great boobs.’

‘Thanks… I guess.’ Mandy looks up at Karen and smirks.

Karen tilts her head and the corners of her mouth pull up as she stares over at Mandy. Mandy tightens her ponytail and quickly runs a hand over her fringe under Karen’s gaze, suddenly really fucking nervous.

‘You wanna go get something to eat?’

Mandy lifts her eyebrows and starts to tap her fingernails against the countertop. ‘What, now?’

Karen rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, now. You’re on break, right?’

Oh, so someone’s been monitoring Mandy’s schedule then. Mandy nibbles her bottom lip and then grins, nodding. ‘You’re buying.’

Karen’s smile breaks out into a beam. ‘Well, I asked you out, so, yeah.’

Mandy bends down to collect her coat from where she’d stashed it under the counter and then walks around to join Karen on the customer side.

‘Promise I won’t try to kiss you ‘til we’ve at least finished our sodas.’

Mandy nudges Karen with her hip and snickers, absolutely fucking denying the fact that she’s blushing to herself.

They end up going to a deli nearby Mandy’s work and order sandwiches and drinks. Mandy finds she likes how Karen changes when she’s not ordering something from _her_. It makes her feel special, in a way, and she doesn’t feel like that very fucking often. She’s not quite sure when her irritation at her customer’s persistence crossed into _fond_ territory, but she’s pretty much liking it.

After they’ve found a bench to sit on in the park next to the deli, Karen squints at Mandy like she’s trying to figure something out.

‘You still live at home?’

Mandy swallows and makes sure to keep her gaze away from Karen. She guesses she’s picked up on the fact that she’s a Milkovich by now, is probably intrigued to find out more about what the fuck happens in their household. Mandy soon finds she doesn’t care about that anymore, though. If Karen really gave a damn about Mandy’s shit show of a family or was in any way intimidated by it, she probably wouldn’t have asked her out in the end.

Mandy eventually shrugs. ‘Yeah. You?’ She takes a tentative bite of her sandwich and waits for Karen’s reply, idly noting the barely-there gap between them.

‘Yeah. I live with my mom. She’s batshit crazy but… I love her, so.’ Karen shrugs and smiles, pulling her sandwich further out of its packet and picking at the bread.

Mandy scrunches her eyebrows together and then it doesn’t take long to piece together all the information she’s collected over the past week or so.

‘Wait, you’re Karen _Jackson_?’ Mandy puts some space in between her and the other girl on the bench, her previously pleasant expression morphing into a grimace. Almost immediately, a hurt look crosses Karen’s face and she turns away, seeming resigned.

‘I guess you’ve heard stuff, huh?’

Mandy stares at Karen’s profile, trying to judge her reaction. Of course she’s heard stuff; who the fuck _hasn’t_ heard about Karen Jackson and her seemingly endless string of both male and female fuck buddies? Mandy looks down at the ground and shifts again so she’s a little closer to Karen because Mandy’s got a bad reputation too and fuck knows ninety percent of what people say about her isn’t true. Maybe she’d been a little too hasty to make a judgement, and Karen had been nothing but sweet (well, looking back on it, Mandy’s going to interpret it as sweet) and a amusingly flirtatious since she started coming to the store regularly... Mandy just doesn’t want to be treated like shit this time.

‘Yeah, I’ve heard things,' Mandy murmurs, nodding her head. She glances up at Karen from under her lashes and watches as her whole demeanour changes, like she’s preparing to prove something. Without warning, Karen scoots along the bench until she’s right in Mandy’s space and they’re practically sharing each other’s breath.

‘What’s wrong with two… or more consenting participants having some fun?’ Karen whispers, hovering just over Mandy’s mouth. Mandy smirks and shakes her head, rolling her eyes and pushing Karen playfully away.

‘Nothin’. Just… doesn’t really sound like girlfriend material, you know?’ Mandy says, a lot more reserved than usual.

She can see Karen biting her lip from the corner of her eye and anticipates the rejection. Karen had just probably been coming back to the store over and over again because she’d wanted to fuck. Mandy knew she was attractive as a sexual object, so she could get why Karen might put in a little more effort than normal. It’s just… disappointing.

‘Look, if you’re going to fucking judge me for shit you’ve probably done too, then I’ll stop trying to push this,’ Karen finally says, gesturing between them.

‘Push what?’ Mandy growls, because Karen’s slightly more aggressive, pissed off tone of voice prompts her to match it.

‘I like you.’

Mandy breathes a startled laugh and can’t stop herself from flicking her eyes to Karen’s lips as they form the sentence. ‘Okay.’

Karen chuckles quietly and unsubtly leans in, staring at Mandy’s lips. At least Mandy had been fucking modest about it.

‘You think I give that much of a shit about shoes? Really?’

‘Pretty sure you just insulted me. Y’know, it’s kind of my job to give a shit about shoes,’ Mandy replies weakly.

‘I know I said I’d wait, but I really wanna kiss you,’ Karen mutters. Suddenly she doesn’t seem so sure of herself, the cockiness that had been ever-present throughout the entire time she’d been trying to get to this point nowhere to be seen. Slowly, Mandy slides her hand up Karen’s arm until she’s cupping the back of her neck and then gently presses her lips against Karen’s. It’s the most PG fucking kiss she’s ever initiated, and it would seem completely out of place to anyone looking on who’d heard about Karen and Mandy’s reputations, but to Mandy it feels like the beginning of something more.

‘We’re doing that again,’ Karen says through a smile, not even giving Mandy any time to reply before she’s leaning in again.

*

As soon as Mandy enters the Milkovich house a little while after she's said goodbye to Karen, she spies her brothers gathered around the cracked screen of their stolen TV, mindlessly watching some shitty cop show. She tries to creep past them as quietly as possible so she can calmly proceed to freak out alone in her room, but she catches Mickey’s eye.

‘The fuck’s got you smiling so wide?’ Mickey grumbles, eyeing Mandy’s expression warily. Mandy bites the inside of her cheek but can’t seem to tame her grin.

‘Karen Jackson,’ she replies simply, rushing off to her room and slamming the door before Mickey can ask into it any further.

Karen. Fucking. Jackson.


End file.
